Here are just a few of the announcements that I’ve noticed lately about firms opening or closing an office in a particular city: Akin Gump to Open Beijing Office; Fulbright & Jaworski Opens Office in the Middle East; Freshfields Shuts Up Shop in Singapore; San Francisco’s Sedgwick Detert Opens Office in Austin; New York’s White & Case To Close Office in San Francisco.

Seemingly lost in the shuffle of news, reports, and lists having to do with firm financials are The American Lawyer’s annual Pro Bono Report and rankings. The report is important not only as a reflection of all the good work done by already-hard-working attorneys, but serves as a record for each AmLaw 200 firm’s pro bono efforts in the previous year. Each firm’s rank in the Pro Bono Report also figures prominently in the annual A-List, also published in American Lawyer magazine.

For those who want to cut to the chase and get the searchable spreadsheet containing the rankings and data upon which the rankings are based, click on Pro Bono Report. The spreadsheet is free to subscribers and costs $250 for non-subscribers. The methodology and definitions for the Pro Bono Report, and for all lists and data contained in the ALM Research Online database, can be accessed in one handy document by clicking on ALM Methodology. The Methodology can also be accessed on the home page of ALM Research Online, under the heading ALM Research Toolbox.

Writing this newsletter has given me the excuse to pursue, with almost-guilty pleasure, searches for information that I might not otherwise have thought to try in the ALM Research Online database. It’s like role-playing, where I put myself in someone else’s shoes and try to imagine their approach to getting the best intelligence available.

If I were (for instance) on the executive committee of a firm looking to move into (for instance) the London market, I’m sure we would want to consider several scenarios – setting up our own office, acquiring an existing boutique, partnering with a firm already in the market, or even merging with a compatible firm. With those suppositions in place, I experimented with a variety of searches – looking at the NLJ 250 spreadsheet information about branch offices, perusing the newly-released Global 100 spreadsheet to get a sense of the size and profitability of U.K.-based firms and the NLJ 250 and AmLaw 200 firms that already have offices there. I also checked the Laterals Report to see whose partners had been moving in and out of London in the last few years.